Nintendo Plans Third-Party Support for Switch

Nintendo has announced that it will be breaking the gaming company’s decades-old tradition with its new handheld the Switch by letting third-party developers make games for it. The news was brought to the public’s attention during the corporation’s earnings statement last week, but the full document containing the Q&A after the presentation was not translated into English until today.

During the event, Nintendo director Shinya Takahashi answered questions regarding possible development of games and other apps for the Switch by companies other than Nintendo or its subsidiaries, saying that the company has been open to it from the very start: the new console will allow for games created on the Unreal or Unity engine, for example. Takashi continued by saying that he hopes independent developers will be drawn to the Switch by the “unique and compelling” content that his company will create.

Why exactly Nintendo has broken their tradition remains unclear, but according to Shigeru Miyamoto, another Nintendo exec quoted in the document, it has a lot to do with the fact that Japanese programmers have become equal in skill to Western ones when it comes to using these engines. Whether this means that Nintendo would prefer to only do business with their countrymen is unknown, but a few other remarks by Miyamoto give the impression that he is mainly thinking of possible ports from other platforms to the Switch rather than unique new content.

What will come of this decision remains to be seen, of course, but it is interesting that this new strategy wasn’t announced until prospective Switch users started complaining about the disappointing games lineup for the new hybrid console. Hopefully soon we’ll know which games, if any, the Switch’s creators deem fit for their new flagship.

Fergus has been tinkering with computers since he was a kid and likes to put a stop to parties by listing the specs of all the digital devices in the room. It's best not to let him near your computer since he'll take it apart and may not put it back together again before he leaves.